California woman missing after hiking accident in Iran

AP: A Stanford University lecturer and veteran mountain climber suffered a fall while descending a mountain in Iran and has been missing for four days, her daughter said Thursday.
A body was found in the area where Kathleen Namphy, 69, was climbing Mount Damavand near Tehran. The Associated Press

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - A Stanford University lecturer and veteran mountain climber suffered a fall while descending a mountain in Iran and has been missing for four days, her daughter said Thursday.

A body was found in the area where Kathleen Namphy, 69, was climbing Mount Damavand near Tehran. The identity of the body has not yet been confirmed, said Namphy's daughter, Lisa-Marie Namphy.

Kathleen Namphy, who scaled Mount Kilimanjaro last year, fell and hit her head on a rock Sunday, according to her interpreter, Mehrdad Etemadi.

Lisa-Marie Namphy said the Swiss Embassy told her Monday her mother died on the mountain and that a body found was presumed to be hers.

"We don't have enough information," the daughter said. Her three brothers were headed to Iran and expected to arrive Saturday.

Etemadi told the San Jose Mercury News he left Namphy with another group while he went to get help.

"For one or two minutes, she couldn't talk, she couldn't move," Etemadi said. "I moved her, she started to open her eyes, but her head was bleeding."

Although the other hikers assured him they would stay by Namphy's side, no one was at the site when rescuers arrived, according to the tourist agency that arranged the trip. The hikers haven't been located.

Kathleen Namphy, a cancer survivor, lived in Iran for 10 years while she worked in the international zoo business, according to her daughter. She also worked as a professor at the American University in Beirut.

"Everything my mom did, whether it's her trips to Iraq as a peace activist or her work in the Middle East with children," her daughter said, "she committed her life to human dignity and human decency."